


The Swans

by theviolonist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Femslash, Rare Pairings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-27
Updated: 2012-05-27
Packaged: 2017-11-06 03:25:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/414185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theviolonist/pseuds/theviolonist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They share a love for careful beauty, that bends but never breaks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Swans

**Author's Note:**

> Future!fic. Mostly canon, though I made Bill die in the war (sorry, Bill!), but that's about it. You'll find hints of other slash if you look very hard, both male and female, but nothing really developed.

The wind swirls in the grass, making it shudder like a vivid green sea, the highest weeds flapping furiously in the air. Luna half-expects to see a hydra spring from its moving depths any minute – maybe even a mermaid. She knows they aren't an extinguised species, despite what everyone says.

She tries to imagine how it would feel being outside, a flower swaying in the cold air, battered by this brewing storm, breathing in its humid scent. She tries to remember how standing in the rain feels – not just the idea of it but everything, the fat, buttery drops bursting on her skin, diffracting in million reflects.

"Luna, my love, would you come and help me, please? I'm having trouble with the lemons."

Luna opens her eyes and inhales. The house smells like terracotta, the brown, heady scent the floor gives off every time she takes a step. Luna loves it beyond words.

"Of course," she whispers, airy as always, her words barely hanging in the air, instead disintegrating immediately, leaving only a spiderweb-thin trail behind them.

Fleur chuckles; she always hears what Luna says, no matter how far she is, it's one of the particularities of her Veela powers. It feels like honey pouring down Luna's throat. She hums contentedly, thanks someone out there that she never gets used to anything.

It turns out that there are too much lemons for Fleur to carry, and they keep spilling from her arms and rolling on the ground, round, yellow balls drawing some kind of giant sun on the floor. Luna laughs when she sees that. She's learnt, being here. She's learnt to forget her shyness and let her laugh explode in her throat and quietly spill out – not to be afraid of people calling her a freak, not to be afraid of anything, not to be hurt.

"Give me some," she sing-songs. Fleur looks up at her from where she's kneeling. Her face is so breath-takingly beautiful, Luna thinks – and the best part is that she knows it isn't the Veela in her, because she's seen that, the golden glow and the crackling, invisible sparks when she touches someone; but no. This is just happiness. Pure, undiluted happiness.

(Luna wishes she could bottle it and give some to the people who need it, especially those who don't even know they need it, just to see their faces light up and their lips part a little, awestruck.)

She ends up with an armful of lemons, and then they're unloading everything in the kitchen and Fleur is twirling in her arms, pointing to the radio and saying that she loves this song, a twenties hit, girly voice and light-fingered piano.

They went to France last week, to Fleur's old house. It smelled of sun and joy and porcelain. Fleur seemed so happy there. She wore (because Luna always remembers, even the things she forgets) a white dress that brushed her ankles every time she moved, leather sandals and a shining, shining smile.

Lune plucked a flower in her hair, behind her ear. She said: "You'll never be unhappy."

Fleur smiled. She's the only one that really understands. ("I know," she said afterwards, a rushed whisper against the skin behind Luna's ear, as they got lost in each other, the sheets caressing their bodies like a motherly sea.)

Fleur's mother made them citronnade. She's the one who gave them the lemons, actually, who made them touch the thick skin and said, proudly: "Le meilleur jus de France."

Luna nodded as though she understood. Sometimes she thinks she understands what the syllables mean – she tests them in her mouth at night, and they roll like waves of sweet, sugary meaning – but she isn't sure they say the same things to her that they say to everyone else. She doesn't mind. She caresses them, appeased by their purred promises, and she whispers: "It'll be our secret."

She remembers Fleur throwing her head back in laughter and sinking her teeth into the shiny yellow skin. She looked like she was eating the sun. She sputtered and laughed a little more because the skin isn't good, but she looked happy, and her teeth shone in the early French sunlight.

She remembers how love was that night, slow and acid from the lemon juice, tiny little laughs sprinkled on fair, fair skin, Fleur's hands twisting in the sheets, her quiet moans, her silent whispers, this little sigh... She remembers with her eyes wide open. That's how she remembers, Luna Lovegood.

The cascade of Fleur's laughter dazzles her out of her reverie.

"Come, come," she says hurriedly with her strange 'o' cradled between her teeth, "come help me make the tarte."

She's humming a song in French, something that goes "Et le chevalier passa il prit la biche dans ses bras." Luna finishes the line. She knows it by heart – by now. "La la la la la." Fleur always laughs at her when she sings in French, fond. 

They arrange the apple pieces on the tender paste, one by one, very carefully. There's jazz music flowing around them, lazy, languid notes and the warm scent of sunlight on windows and the sunny, yellow paste in another bowl that sends wafts of lemon through the room. Life has never been better, easier than it is now.

They lean in at the same time, the careful bow of their delicate bodies, and they meet in the middle. Lips to lips, they whisper the lyrics to the song, and Luna licks the apple taste off of Fleur's mouth. Outside, the sky is extraordinarily pink, vibrant and shining.

*

No one remembers exactly how they got together after so many years of ignoring each other's existence, but everyone always wonders at them when they walk into a room, rushing over to them to compliment their incredible chemistry. Fleur ducks her head, as though she were blushing, to hide a smile – and Luna holds her hand a little tighter, because it's always difficult to accept that they've got this and no one else does.

Falling into the life they have now was like falling into a song: they rushed to catch the melody, but once they got it, it all went very smoothly, flowing like a river in their throats, swallowing the sun with too-wide smiles. Luna sometimes remembers, when night has fallen and draped her thick black shawl around the earth's shoulders (she really does believe that. She's not the only one that does, but she's the only one that dares to say it out loud) their joint surprise when they found out, when they stopped, face to face, and said: "Oh."

She smiles. It's taken a long time for her to be able to smile at memories again.

It hasn't been all flowers and rainbows, you know. They struggled too – all of them did, there was no other way. You don't get out of a war unscathed. You don't. You don't.

They had nightmares, at first. They dreamt that it wasn't over, that they were still scared children running around trying to quench a fire whose flames were too high to reach and too thick to drown. They dreamt of Voldemort's smile – You-Know-Who – and they dreamt of death. They dreamt of all the loved ones they lost. No one comes out of a war like that without scars. Even children – the ones who weren't even born at the time of the Battle – couldn't go to sleep at night. "Monsters," they said, and everyone heard "the War" because it was still here, long after it ended.

They made it, though. They fell in love, and they bought their little house atop the hill, and even though sometimes at first when they came home and the falling sun set it afire they still ran and screamed and tried to salvage it, they've healed. They had to. They fell in love – no better remedy than that.

They got a cat, too.

It's a funny story, actually. Luna found it on the moor, on a Thursday morning. It was all wet, its fur spiked, white with blueish streaks – battered by the swirling winds that always shriek and try to chase everyone away, as though they were a crew of bitter young girls rejected by their lovers. When she got home it was tiny enough to fit in Fleur's joint hands, and Luna's breath caught in her throat when she saw them, this little ball of white fluff against her lover's heart.

They kept it. It paraded on the cushions, careful catwalk on their laps like fingers on a piano, back electric. It was haughty and shy at the same time, nose held up when the living-room started to smell of caramel and sun, in the first hours of the morning.

They called if Jeudi.

Sometimes it climbs on the couch when they're sitting together, heads bent almost close enough to touch, calmly enjoying each other's warmth – it nestles against their legs and it purrs, the low growling setting the rhythm of their fragile happiness.

*

Luna loves these moments – lying in a pool of linen, Fleur's lithe, pale body lying next to her, naked chest heaving when she breathes. This faint golden glow her hair gives off (or maybe Luna is imagining it, but it's beautiful all the same). Her scent. Her warmth.

She loves this world that they've created for themselves, the little house atop the hill, the sun and the sea and the red dust the wind sometimes carries, the rain, the grass…

Love isn't an usual feeling for Luna. She's used to aloof tenderness, to gentle, calm, caressing feelings, sorrow, wistfulness, regrets, dulled and pleasantly aching, but love? No. Love is too much, too overwhelming, too dangerous. Love is just too risky a bet to take, and Luna does not put herself at risk. Not for that.

But maybe she does, for Fleur. Maybe it's all it takes, a pretty girl who smells of happiness in the aftermath of a war. Someone's arms around her, when no one has noticed she's fled the room because she couldn't breathe. Strawberry-flavored lips against her own. White flesh pinkening under her fingers.

Maybe Luna has grown up, she thinks as Jeudi hops on the bed and settles on her belly, the warm, purring weight of him drawing a smile to her lips. Maybe she's not a child anymore.

Fleur stirs in her sleep, cracks an eye open.

"Why are you awake?" she asks sleepily – her hair makes a mess around her head, a halo or a crown.

Luna smiles. Tenderness floods her chest. 

"Go back to sleep. The night is still young."

And Fleur – bless her, bless her, bless her –, Fleur smiles at her and closes her eyes and she whispers "I love you."

Luna will stay awake a little more. She likes the night: she likes her motherly arms, wrapped around her as her head wobbles; she likes her murmurs and her secrets, and she likes her silence, too. She'll thank the stars, one by one, for glowing so late, because they must be tired after all this work. They don't have to, they could go to sleep – everyone would miss them but they'd have to understand, for once.

She'll stay awake and, eyes wide open, she'll look at the stars and whisper:

"It's okay. Go to sleep."

She'll wait for their golden twinkle to grow fuzzy and soft, and, as a tentative dawn will start breaking through the skies, she'll see one of them wink at her and answer softly, her voice very far away, as though only a light-year's travel separated them: "It's okay, Luna. Go to sleep," with an amused, if a little sad, smile.

She'll fall asleep, then – and when she'll wake up, she'll have an arm snug tightly across Fleur's stomach, her chin buried in the crook of her neck, and words on her lips threatening to spill - "I'll never let you go." Fleur will smile – she knows.

They will go down to the kitchen. The stars will have disappeared, retired in the privacy of their mystical kingdoms, leaving place to the arrogant sun. Fleur will welcome it like she does everyday – she picked up some lunacy from Luna; it suits her beautifully –, walk to the window, open it and yell: "Hé, mate! Nice to see you still haven't grown tired of shining!" and then she will return to her seat and smile a little quirkily to Luna, her lips turned up in an almost-smirk, as though they were sharing a private joke.

Luna will smile back. They are.

Their whole life is a big private joke, and personally, Luna couldn't have dreamt for better.

*

Luna is good with numbers. It comes as a surprise for most people – they figure that, because she's a little odd, a little whimsical, she doesn't get the logic of numbers, the way they slot in and just  _fit_ with each other, but she does. Privately, she thinks they just don't see it the right way – but then, they never do.

They don't get that numbers are just like every other species she's the only one to believe in, with their idiosyncrasies and their exceptions – some of them have bigger ears, and some of them only eat flowers that grow in January. They don't get that she handles them the same way, very delicately, careful not to ruffle their fur.

She's good with numbers. They like her – they like the way she's poetic and charming, not dry and serious like the old cantankerous professors they deal with all day. They like her smooth hands and minty breath, and they like her gorgeous girlfriend. Luna likes the way they never slip between her fingers, unlike all the others things. Words are more temperamental.

Sometimes she takes them to her room and she plays with equations for hours, adding and subtracting and dividing and watching the numbers dance and fit and try to confuse her without ever really succeeding. She never loses. There's always a solution. She likes that. She likes a lot of things the others wouldn't believe. Fleur only laughs and traces numbers on Luna's back with her tongue.

Luna works at the Quibbler, of course, but sometimes she shuts herself in her office (if you could call that an office – mostly she just threw out all the furniture, had the walls knocked down and made a garden instead, with just her father's old desk of doxy-infested wood he always said was from the lost continent of Mû) and does the numbers, not because she wants to know what they've earned but because she likes it, the scratching of the pen on the notebook and the presence of her father surrounding her.

Words she has a more difficult relation with. They're like cats, purring and sensual one minute and hissy the next, slipping out a window as seamlessly as i rain slipping down roof-tiles, sometimes not coming back for days and leaving her alone, wordless, mute. Fleur doesn't mind. Fleur is a goddess – she boils water in the singing kettle and she makes her a hot water with lemon, all the while singing lowly under her breath, sweet and caring until Luna finds her voice back.

She understands that Luna likes numbers and that she trips on words sometimes, can't get anything out other than riddles, tight little fluttering mysteries that she needs to take time to unwrap, very slowly, careful not to break them. She does it – she's more patient that she lets on, especially when she really wants to. She always wants to with Luna. Sometimes it's difficult not to love her hard enough to hurt. Sometimes Luna has to remind herself that it's happiness, it's small and fluffy and delicate and if she squeezes it too hard, it'll break. She tries not to be too intense. Fleur sees her trying, and she buys these pasta that looks like letters, and she makes soup and spells 'I love you' on the edge of Luna's plate.

Fleur also has her queer little habits, her inabilities and her squicks, but they aren't quite as important as Luna's. It doesn't mean that their relationship isn't balanced, because it is, it really is, it just means that sometimes Luna needs a bit more taking care of, rocking and petting and consoling. Fleur does it. (But Fleur begs, sometimes, too, her teeth shiny with saliva and open to bite, shaking with tension and _want_.)

They eat the apple pie in silence, smiling at each other from each side of the table – at some point Luna ducks forward and kisses Luna, quick as lightning, and then resumes eating.

Luna finds equations in their smiles. She can't decipher all of them, but she gets the algorithms and the way they glow, sweet and lazy, the way they spell out silent declarations only she can read.

*

And their first kiss. It sounds cheesy, saying it like that, but there's really no other way, no other way to say it but 'first kiss', complete with shining eyes and sparkly smiles and mischievous innuendo.

Luna also remembers their first kiss.

She can't name the day, or even the exact moment it happened, if it was before or after Harry proposed to Ginny and she accepted with a flurry of eyelashes, to everyone's half-surprise and half-non surprise, if it was before or after the world started feeling right again and things resumed their blossoming, new and dew-covered, shocking declarations and shy smiles and radiant, sunny idyls. She can't really remember that. It all happened very fast, at least in her mind – in reality it took almost two years for everything to slot more or less back into place. But then, she guesses, after all that they've been through, two years isn't that long.

It was – they were – how can she say that? Right. Here she goes.

 

They'd been friends for a while – but then againwith Luna 'a while' can mean everything. She doesn't have the same time than other people, and when she gets called on it, she smiles and shrugs, as though she knew something the others don't, although she doesn't, not really. They'd started hanging out after the war: Luna had tried to mend the pieces of Fleur, beautiful, fragile Fleur whose husband had been taken away, and Fleur had been very gentle and sweet, understanding that Luna needed someone to turn to her and ask her if she was okay, even though she hadn't been as wounded or scarred as the others.

"Are you okay?"

It jolts Luna back to reality – a sharp consciousness assaults her senses. She shakes her head reassuringly, and here she is, Fleur, dear, precious Fleur.

"I'm fine." She scrunches up her nose (she doesn't like the formulation); Fleur laughs. It's a nice sound.

They're in a library, an old, dusty library Fleur insisted they come to. Luna usually prefers the outside, the damp air when it's sunny and the sunburns and the colds. She likes a nature that leaves its imprint on her body, that reminds her that it's here and that she's alive, she's alive, you know? She likes to _feel_ things – be assured that they're really here, that it's not all just a big brilliant, cruel dream. But she agreed anyway.

She doesn't regret it.

They're sitting on the floor between two rows of books, their knees grazing from time to time – Fleur's skirt inches on her thighs and Luna is surprised at how magnetically the bare skin attracts her eyes, drawing a pool of subdued arousal to her stomach. Luna should feel claustrophobic – she usually does when she's in places like this, with no sky at all and all the nature hidden away, far from her sight – but she doesn't. She's too busy being half-aroused and half-surprised at herself for it, the heat coiling in her stomach. This kind of thing doesn't happen to Luna.

(She lies when she says that. It happened before, once – but all she remembers is red flashes and white, freckly skin. She isn't even sure anything happened at all, or even what she means by 'anything'.)

Fleur laughs at something she said. It's not a mocking laugh, it's open and ample, free. Luna isn't used to this either – she says to herself in her head, 'Well, it's a day of firsts'. She tries not to think about how much firsts seem to come from Fleur these days.

(Fleur grieves over Bill. The first days after the war, she cried so many tears Luna honest-to-Merlin believed that she was going to create a new sea. She even wondered what they would call it. The Flower sea? The Fleur sea? The Bill sea? The Sorrow sea? She wondered what it would feel like to bathe in it, in the moonlight-dust covered immensity of it, the waves licking her sides and shining on her chest, making her shiver.

But she stopped crying. Fleur. She stopped crying after a week, and everyone else would have let her cry a little more, because it was her husband and she loved him so much, but she said 'It's okay' and 'It's over' and 'Je vais bien'. She dressed in black and went to the funeral, too. She got up on the stand and didn't cry – a tall, strong woman, despite the appearances. She said that Bill was a good man and a good husband. That he would remain in the memory of many. That she would never forget him, but that the world had to go on, that the war was over and that that was a reason to celebrate and feel joy, because Bill would have wanted them all to be happy.

She put on music and they all danced until their feet hurt, even though they were sad and dressed in black and there were tears streaming down their cheeks. Because she was right.

Then Luna and her fell in love, and when Luna (because she's only a scared little girl, after all) asked her if she still loved Bill, she said: "It's okay."

Love is not eternal and universal, she said. And then she looked Luna right in the eye, and she said: "I love you."

Luna isn't sure she understood, but it doesn't matter. She still has plenty of time to.)

That day, in the library, Fleur leans in and kisses her full on the lips. It's not forceful but it's not exactly delicate either, and when she pulls away, Luna catches her cheek and says:

"Sure. Alright," and kisses her again.

This time it's open and wet and it gets deeper, dirtier, more tangible. Luna doesn't know this side of the world – she's ethereal, she doesn't know the mechanics of it, skin and heat and sex, the frantic beating of hearts and the ravenous hands against her hips.

"It's okay," Fleur murmurs against her jaw. "I'll teach you everything."

And then she repeats, right into her skin, the words sinking in the juncture of skin between her neck and collarbone, "I'll teach you."

She slips a hand on Luna's stomach and Luna jumps, she's afraid and she's aroused and she's never felt this vulnerable before, not ever.

"Merlin," the word slips from her lips, she didn't want it to come out, but -

Fleur laughs, a little desperate and a little deliriously happy, and she kisses a wet path between Luna's breasts, blowing across them and making her shiver.

"Can I...?" she asks, and Luna nods frantically, "Yes, yes, yes" even though she doesn't know what she's agreeing to, all words forgotten all of a sudden, her brain a desert land set afire by this blinding pleasure, arousal so acute it hurts, making her want to explode, or maybe implode, she doesn't really know.

Fleur unbuttons her shirt, and Luna regrets ever deciding to wear buttons, buttons are clearly evil, that much is sure. But then the shirt is off, and oh, oh, oh – Fleur's hands on her breasts made overly sensitive by – but she doesn't even know what this is – and then her mouth, sucking and nipping and has something ever felt so good?

"Let me -," she fumbles with Fleur's skirt, and shivers when her hand finds the creamy skin of her thighs.

"It's okay," Fleur whispers, chasing her hands away. "We'll take care of that later." She seems to hesitate, and then she bends to whisper "I'm not wearing any underwear" in her ear, low and filthy and everything Luna didn't know Fleur could even  _be_ , least of all with her. But this – this is happening.

Fleur returns to nosing her breasts, her stomach, the wet heat of her mouth sending shivers down Luna's spine, so hard she's shaking, shaking like a leaf. And then – then one of her hand sneaks into Luna's pants and presses against her crotch, and that is just too much, too fucking much.

"Fleur," she says – whines – begs, the words slipping in Fleur's mouth where they are her lips are lazily moving against her, dragging, slow and purposeful, "I'm – I -"

Fleur looks her right in the eyes, looking ferocious and beautiful. "I'm sure you dreamt of that," she says, and it isn't even dirty talk, just an observation, and she's right, Luna did, but she never imagined it would be quite like  _that_ , to be honest – never imagined anything could be like that, ever.

Fleur moves her fingers; Luna gasps. They both laugh deliriously, foreheads pressed one against the other, Luna fucking herself desperately on Fleur's slim, delicious, talented fingers, panting and gasping, her mouth open in a broken string of fantastical curses laced with I love yous and Fleur's name, over and over again...

At some point she opens her eyes – she didn't know she could be like that either, so gloriously incandescent, alight with desire and joy –, and she says: "Come on," in Fleur's shoulder, breathless and fierce, "fuck me."

Fleur obliges – soon she has Luna writhing against the bookshelves, hands desperately trying to gripe the volumes but not quite succeeding, sliding and falling, just like the words fall gloriously from her mouth, half-open eyes looking at Fleur kneeling before her, her hand disappeared in Luna's pants, her cheeks rosy and her breathing ragged.

Luna digs her heels into the skin of Fleur's back. Head thrown back, she slips a hand under Fleur's skirt in blind, and the sticky wetness that soaks her underwear, almost dripping on her fingers, startles her and makes her shiver anew.

She remembers that afternoon as though it were yesterday, the crumbling heat, the books around them whispering knowledge in their ears, that sensation of free-falling, the void before her, their first time that didn't feel like a first but did, the discovery (Fleur is like a new America to Luna, a new land that she gets to touch before anyone has – she knows it isn't true, but it is), the heat, the sizzling heat, her fingers in Fleur, Fleur crying out her name, this insane rush...

They've learned to make love differently, since that day. They've learned the careful bend of bodies in the tender chill of spring, the golden slide of skin against skin, the light dancing to reach them, catching the curtains on heavenly fire, the kittenish cries that draw music on their flanks.

They've learned the unhurried conversations, sheets pooling around their waists, and the breakfasts in bed, watermelon sugar sticking to the skin of a collarbone, juice dripping on their chins, laughter... They've learnt so much since that day. They're still young, but they aren't children anymore.

The past hasn't disappeared, but it's quieted down, reduced to a slow, placid murmur, drawing little smiles from them from time to time. They aren't going to forget – they've found just the right equilibrium, the open slot between past and future they can slide in and occupy for a while. They share a love for careful beauty, that bends but never breaks, and it's what they have now, this blessed, fragile harmony, sometimes dangling from their fingertips but never quite falling.

They fall in love every day.

Sometimes Luna thinks she doesn't deserve it, but then she steals a glance at Fleur, drowsy and contented, her head wobbling on the arm of the couch, she thinks about the war, her father's grave, Harry, Ron, the numbers and the letters and the things she loves and the things she doesn't, and she tells herself that she doesn't really care.

*

It'll be later, at Ginny's wedding, when they arrive together, in dresses that don't match (pastel blue gauze fluttering around Fleur's shoulders and bright yellow snug around Luna's body).

Ginny will look at her, really _look_ , and then at the two of them, their hands carefully slotted into each other's. She'll seem a little wistful, and maybe there'll be the regret of something that could've been but wasn't in her eyes.

She'll smile.

"You're beautiful," she'll say.

Luna will know what she means.

Then the party will go on – there'll be a shudder of emotion in the crowd at the exchange of vows, a collective 'aw' at the kiss, Ron making Hermione dance even though she doesn't want to because she's pregnant to the eyes, the silent mourning of Fred's absence, the subdued joy of  _being here_. There'll be Fleur's laughter when she doesn't catch the bouquet, Pansy's blush as she tries not to hold it against her chest, Seamus and Blaise grinning fondly at each other, Gabrielle sneezing because she's allergic to mimosa and forgot to tell everyone (of  _course_ there's mimosa, it's a  _wedding_ , for Merlin's sake, Molly will grumble as she hands a tissue to the whining teenager, and couldn't her mother have guessed that, seriously, aren't they, like, flower specialists or something in bloody France?). There'll be rain and the hasty charming of the tents, someone complaining that the cake is soggy, McGonagall saying that there will be an homage to Dumbledore sometime in the next month at Hogwarts, a quiet prayer for the dead.

They'll dance. Luna will hold Fleur against her chest, breathe her in, secure her arms around her waist and kiss her shoulder.

"I love you," she'll say. "More than I love Umgubular Slashkilters."

"Mm," Fleur will answer against the swell of her cheek. "That's saying something."

"It is."

They'll dance until the dance-floor is empty, their dresses flowing lazily around them, Luna's bare feet swishing on the ground. Fleur will rest her head against Luna's shoulder and breathe, sweat and rain and perfume all blending together to make a scent that is so perfectly hers that it'll make something in Luna's chest clench and burst like a firework.

Then, when the party is over and Ginny has gone off with Harry under the catcalls of her friends and family, a blush high on her cheeks, looking more beautiful than she ever did, Luna will take Fleur's hand and they'll apparate back to the house. Luna will undress Fleur slowly, as tough she were a gift and Luna wanted to keep the wrapping paper, layer after layer, smiling slightly when Fleur's breath will catch in her throat and she'll look down, her eyes heavy-lidded and hungry. They'll make love slowly, unhurriedly, planting butterfly kisses on each other's skin until they're drunk with it, and the night will be slow and warm.

Luna will repeat 'I love you' like a nursery rhyme against Fleur's collarbones, and Fleur will say it back, her voice soft and secretive like it always it when she says things she really means. Luna will let the quiet beating of Fleur's heart lull her to sleep, a sliver of dawning sun in her eyes, happier than she's ever been.

*

They read in the living-room. It stopped raining, and Fleur has gone to open the window, her ample white gown fluttering when the wind swirled in the room, bringing with it the humid scent of wet grass.

Fleur is reading _Peace and War_ , Luna Thimothée de Fombelle. They don't talk. They listen.

Sometimes Luna chuckles at what she's reading and Fleur turns to smile at her, open and genuine, affection shining in her eyes.

The notes of a silent waltz stream into the room, a peaceful melody that sounds a little like Leonard Cohen's  _Take this waltz_  but is something different, more intimate, more  _theirs_. Luna knows Fleur can hear it too.

When it's 11:07 on the grandfather clock they brought back from France, a ray of sunlight hits the mirror and rebounds on it, drawing a mischievous glint out of Luna's ring, the intricate silver threads.

She reaches for Fleur's chin and places a quick kiss on her lips. Fleur hums contentedly against her mouth.

Jeudi purrs.

Then they go back to their reading, like they've known each other forever.

Because in a way, they have.


End file.
